


hello, zuko here

by honeyfoozle



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Crack, Dark Comedy, Gen, Out of Character, Time Loop, Time Shenanigans, Underage Drinking, poor zuko lmaoooo, time looping gaang members cope with cactus juice sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25998049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyfoozle/pseuds/honeyfoozle
Summary: Katara wasn’t expecting this at all. Zuko had tracked down their location in the Western Air Temple and now he stood before them, asking to become a part of their group.Well,shewasn’t expecting it, but apparently everyone else was. How exactly, she wasn’t sure.OR: Aang, Zuko, Sokka and Toph get stuck in a time loop. They develop vastly different opinions regarding how to break it.Katara is extremely confused.
Relationships: Aang & The Gaang (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 123
Kudos: 669





	1. Part 1

Katara wasn’t expecting this at all. Zuko had tracked down their location in the Western Air Temple and now he stood before them, asking to become a part of their group.

Well, _she_ wasn’t expecting it, but apparently everyone else was. How exactly, she wasn’t sure.

“We said no,” Sokka said. He sounded incredibly exasperated, even though Zuko had only offered to help once. “How many times do we need to repeat that?”

Even more peculiar was that Toph and Aang hadn’t even bothered to hear Zuko's good-guy speech out; instead, they trekked to the other side of the room and earthbended a makeshift…Katara paused. Was that a keg?

Even Sokka looked a little confused, raising a brow at the pair.

“For the cactus juice,” Aang said. Sokka’s grin suggested he needed no further explanation.

“Ooooh, nice!” He said, giving them a big thumbs-up before shrugging at Zuko. “Stay for a drink if you want, I guess. It’s good stuff. But then you have to get lost. You know the drill.”

Katara had a lot of questions that night when Zuko left the temple, absolutely blasted on cactus juice and stumbling away into the darkness. 

_\-------_

Katara didn’t know what to make of this situation. She only had a few seconds to process the figure behind Appa as Prince Zuko, but the rest of the gang was way ahead of her.

“Hello…Zuko here,” came a chorus of four voices; everyone's but Katara's.

Aang, Sokka and Toph wore sour expressions as they mocked him. They all had deep circles under their eyes, and Katara could have sworn one of Toph’s was twitching. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know, Mr. _Zuko here_ ,” Sokka said. “The answer is the same as the last ten times.”

“Would you guys at least just let me—ugh,” Zuko sighed. Come to think of it, he didn’t look so good either. “Look, I heard you guys—”

“Flying around down there, so I thought I’d wait for you up here.” Katara’s face scrunched in confusion as her friends voiced over Zuko’s words perfectly, but in whiny baby voices.

“We don’t have to go through the same script every time, dumbass,” Toph said.

“Well, yeah, but will you just hear me out? Sending me away clearly isn’t working!” Zuko cried. "I hate this just as much as you all."

"Go cry about it," Aang said. "Annoying piece of trash."

Katara cocked her head. It wasn't like Aang to talk like that. And it definitely wasn't like him to airbend Zuko so hard that his back smacked against one of the temple's pillars. 

"Fuck you," Zuko coughed. 

“No, Aang he's right…sending him away isn't working,” Sokka said. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

Aang and Sokka then shared a look that Katara couldn’t decipher. Those two and Toph had been acting so strange today; she would have to ask about it later.

\-------

Katara couldn’t believe it. It was one thing for Zuko to show up unannounced at the Western Air Temple, but an entirely different thing to respond the way Aang had. 

Before Zuko even had a chance to open his mouth, Aang had already jumped on top of him, wrapped both hands around his neck and began to slam his head into the concrete repeatedly. It was rather unlike him. Especially considering he could have used three different types of bending instead of murdering someone with his bare hands.

What’s more, Sokka and Toph cheered him on the entire time.

“There you go Twinkle Toes! That’s the spirit!” She was furiously stomping, clapping her hands and making more of a ruckus than if she were earthbending an avalanche.

“Fuck him up!” Sokka cried. “Make it hurt!” He took a long swig from his flask and Katara stared at him in horror. The only other time she’d seen his pupils that dilated was when he drank…

Oh, Spirits.

When Aang was finished, he dragged Zuko’s body to the edge of the temple and threw it over the edge. He smiled at the gut-wrenching _crack_ of his lifeless corpse hitting the ground.

“That should do it guys,” he said. He had a crazed look in his eyes and his mouth twitched a little. “That should break it.”

“Hell yeah it should,” Toph said.

“It’s finally over. Hit me with some of that shit,” Aang said, eyeing the flask in Sokka’s hand.

“You got it buddy.”

\-------

It happened so fast that Katara could hardly keep up.

Zuko approached the group dressed head to toe in bulletproof armor. He hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself or explain anything. Sokka and Toph groaned loudly when he held a loaded crossbow to Aang’s head.

“Let me join your fucking group already. I’m done playing games.”

Katara wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that. Zuko had been completely out of the picture since Ba Sing Se and had since made no effort to hunt them down, let alone try to join them.

Why he was offering to help them now, while simultaneously threatening the integrity of Aang’s skull, baffled her.

“Or what?” Aang spat back. He didn’t look remotely concerned for his life. He looked like a caged animal, staring right up the barrel with a fearlessness Katara was both in awe of as well as thoroughly concerned at.

“Do it, I dare you,” Aang said through his teeth. Was he..frothing at the mouth?

Katara looked to the rest of the group for help. However, Sokka and Toph weren’t too bothered by the events unfolding in front of them.

“Honestly, maybe give it a try,” Sokka said, words slurred and cactus juice dribbling down his chin. “What’ll it matter?”

“Agreed,” Toph said. “Gonna just start all over anyways.”

\-------

Start over, it did. No matter the altercation, the group found themselves reliving the same cursed day over and over again.

“Guys, I can’t do this anymore,” Toph said. “I’m going crazy.”

“Me too,” Aang said. “I really thought going into the Avatar state and killing all of you guys would work. I wasn’t even concerned about going on by myself afterwards.”

 _“I_ was convinced pledging our allegiance to Firelord Ozai and ganging up on Zuko was the answer,” Toph said. “Although, it took Katara a while to come around to that one. For a tightly wound mom friend, she’s honestly pretty flexible.”

“Here I was betting on the time we pretended to let Zuko join and then pushed him off Appa under the guise of a group hug,” Sokka said, rubbing his temples. “Damn cactus juice…Damn Avatar…Damn hangover…”

“At least Zuko never showed up today. He probably needs a break too,” Aang said with a yawn.

“I need a hell of a lot more than a break,” Sokka said. With a large sigh and a last look of resolve, he stood up and walked to the edge of the temple.

“Where are you going?” Toph asked.

“To kill myself,” Sokka said. “See ya guys tomorrow.”

Katara was a little wary that night when they told her Sokka was out late practicing his combat skills, but she eventually took to the idea and fell asleep peacefully.

Aang and Toph soon followed suit, dreaming up how Zuko would meet his end tomorrow.


	2. Part 2

Katara wasn’t expecting this at all. Zuko had tracked down their location in the Western Air Temple and now he stood before them, asking to become a part of their group.

Well, _she_ wasn’t expecting it, but apparently everyone else was. How exactly, she wasn’t sure. All she knew is that Toph started barking like a dog, which alerted Sokka and Aang to frantically run around and yell, “he’s here! He’s here!”

Why they were running around on all fours and drooling like wild animals, Katara also couldn’t explain. But she had other things to focus on. Namely, the boy walking towards their campsite.

Zuko looked…awful. Pallid skin, dark undereye circles, terrible posture. He swayed a little, unsteady on his feet.

Katara immediately readied herself to fight, eyes blazing with a hatred for the fire nation prince in front of her.

When Aang, Sokka and Toph ran right by her and tackled Zuko, she assumed it was a new method of combat. Not a group hug.

“ZuZu!” Sokka said, and Katara had to do a double take; was he crying tears of joy?

“We thought you would never come back,” Toph said, peppering his face with kisses of gratitude.

“Nice job waiting 69 loops man, I had a feeling you’d come back today,” Sokka had to throw in, and the two boys shared a fist bump and unanimous _you know it._

“You guys, I was always going to come back,” Zuko said, turning serious. His voice held a fondness one might reserve for old, cherished friends. Why he adopted this tone while referring to individuals Katara was sure he wanted dead, she couldn’t understand. Even more unfathomable was when he threw in a stern, “just don’t fucking kill me this time, okay? Fucking psychopaths.”

“The answer is yes,” Aang said. “Just…join. I don’t even care what happens anymore.”

“Couldn’t care less,” Sokka murmured in agreement.

“Literally could not give less of a shit,” Toph said.

Katara had a lot of questions that night when the rest of the group pampered Zuko, who, as far as she was concerned, was their enemy. But now Sokka was giving him a foot rub, Aang was feeding him grapes and Toph just wouldn’t stop apologizing.

Zuko was more timid than she remembered; a little head shy too. It was especially strange that whenever Aang so much as lifted a finger in his direction, he would take cover and whimper for mercy.

“What does he mean by ‘not the air vacuum again, please, dear spirits above, I can’t take it anymore’?” Katara whispered to Toph.

“Uhh…beats me,” Toph said. “I’m just blind.”

But for some reason, her group begged Zuko to stay with them, to give this “one last try”. What an odd shift in dynamics, Katara thought.

\-------

As it turned out, the secret to escaping the time loop was, in fact, to let Zuko join Team Avatar. No violence necessary.

“Well what do you _fucking_ know, it worked. Just like I said it would,” Zuko said when they woke up the next day and had not, in fact, gone back in time. “I literally fucking hate you guys so much.”

“Man, if only we knew that sooner. I feel kind of embarrassed now,” Aang said. He turned to the boy next to him with puppy dog eyes, twiddling his thumbs. “Sorry, Zuko.”

“Shut the fuck up. To think you call yourself a pacifist.”

Aang shrugged coyly.

“We’re really sorry too, Zuko,” Sokka and Toph were up next, and boy, their apology was the whole package. They went and tried to make themselves as innocent as possible; hands behind their backs, shuffling their feet, shy heads down and proverbial tails between their legs. It was as though they accidentally lost Zuko’s favorite shirt, not murdered him in one thousand different ways across time itself.

“You two, I’m less mad at for some reason,” Zuko said, then he sighed. “Ah, shit. Whatever. Got anymore cactus juice, Sokka?”

\-------

They sent Katara out to fetch some water before getting obliterated in Toph’s earth tent.

“It was a rough 69 days without you, man,” Sokka said. “Thought we had escaped a few times, but you know how it is. Eventually we just started killing ourselves as soon as we woke up and hoped for the best.”

Aang shuddered. “Around two weeks ago we actually lost the ability to die, so…yeah. I don’t know what that’s going to look like moving forward.”

“At least now we know what would happen if we ever decided to sacrifice Aang to the Spirit World,” Toph pointed out, to which the group responded with a chorus of shrugs and _yeah, true_ ’s.

“I definitely deserved that one,” Aang said, thinking back to his friend’s satanic ritual with a smile. It hadn’t been fun being tied to a stake and burned alive while they attempted to make a blood pact with Koh, but damn if his buddies didn’t give it all they had. “You guys are bad.”

Sokka grinned. “And we can’t forget about Toph’s epic fail—” a burst of laughter interrupted his words “—shit, I can’t even say it—”

“Shut up, Sokka! Ugh, so embarrassing,” Toph said, but she was blushing and giggling like a schoolgirl.

They were, of course, referring to the loop when she gouged Zuko’s eyes out in an attempt to restore her vision.

The group shared a unanimous laugh, reminiscing on the good old days.

“Man, I love you guys,” Zuko said.

“I wouldn’t want to traverse the dimensions of time with anyone else,” Aang agreed, raising his cactus juice. “To violence!”

“To violence!” They echoed.

And so, after 69,420,666 loops in time, Team Avatar was finally on their way to defeat Firelord Ozai and save the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before you guys tell me how much you hate this, just know I hate it equally as much. im sorry. but thanks for reading anyways?? :) *cute apologetic aang face*


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